Chapter 28
Sage
How could Jasher do this? She wasn’t prepared!
“Sage.” His face was a clouded sky of confusion. “What is going on? Are you all right?” Jasher helped her to her feet again, after she fell hard onto the grassy meadow. “I know I was moving fast. We can slow things way down.”
“It’s not that.” All the saliva in her mouth had disappeared and turned it into the Sahara. “You just don’t know what a mistake you’d be making.”
He didn’t put the ring back in his pocket. He held it up to the sky, and through it, since he held it at just the right angle, Sage could see the moon. All encompassed in that tiny loop. The moon—so large, and so small. Just like her curse.
Jasher folded the ring into his fist. “What is wrong? You’re not acting like yourself.”
“Jasher. There’s something you don’t know about me.”
“Whatever it is, I’d like to find it out. And all the other things about you. Slowly. Over time.” He pulled her to his side, her spine curving to meld to his frame, her will bending along with it.
No. She must be firm. “It’s not possible.”
“Do you still miss your late husband?”
“No.” At the flashing image of Leo, a shudder racked her from stem to stern. “Oh, please, no.”
“Then it’s possible.”
If only things were that simple. “I can’t do this to you, Jasher. You’re too important. Your abilities can make such a difference in the world.”
He leaned in and pressed his lips to the side of her neck, dulling her other senses and leaving her only with touch. “The only world I want to make a difference in right now is yours.”
Oh! He was good. He was tempting. He was killing her with the progress his kisses were making across her skin. “I wish I weren’t so weak.”
“You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.”
No. She was giving in to his allurements. Weak—when she needed most to be stalwart. She had to stop this.
“I killed my husband.”
Jasher’s hand fell away from her back. Slowly, he pulled his face from her neck and took a step backward. “You what?”
Oh. Dear. That had not come out right. “Not directly. I didn’t mean that.”
“But indirectly?” Jasher cleared his throat. “I don’t understand.”
His scent wafted to her. She longed to tell him to forget it, that this was a joke. To keep kissing her, and yes, she’d go to Reedsville with him, stand at his side in any operating room, lie at his side every night as she wore his ring.
But no. That confounded ring!
“I knew better, Jasher. Too many times—I’d seen the proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“Of my curse.”
Saying it aloud—to Jasher—it sounded irrational. The word clunked onto the turf between them. They both looked down where it lay between their feet.
“Your curse.” Jasher seemed to kick it to the side. “What exactly was in that can of Orange Fanta you were drinking earlier? Are you feeling all right?”
“I wish this were as impossible as it sounds. I wish it weren’t real. But …” She had to give him the full scoop. “Take me home. I’ll show you.”